Monday, May 2, 2011

Some Claremont Bike News...

The new Citrus Regional Bikeway through town is pretty much complete except for a dedication ceremony. Nothing like nice smooth, fresh pavement:

view to the west along 1st Street

view to the east along Bonita Avenue

It is essentially a bike lane with a special name designation, though it does traverse the city east to west, and connects to the regional Pacific Electric Trail on Claremont's eastern boundary. If Pomona and La Verne to the west were to get on board and continue the route through, the Citrus Bikeway could become a nice additional to a regional system. The signage is pretty clever, up close it is clearly a bicycle wheel, it could be a half citrus, orange to be exact.

El Roble Intermediate School's Bike Marathon is fast approaching. This is an annual event in which the schools 8th grade students, who meet certain academic requirements, ride laps during a 24 hour period around the school track to raise funds for the Claremont Chapter of the American Red Cross. This years edition will be the 35th year of the event. Over the past 34 years more than $150,000 have been raised. The students take pledges for donations to be paid per lap. The final three practices are this week. Link to last year's event is here.

Finally, I have neither read, nor heard of any bike to work day events this year. Last year's event, co-sponsored by the city and Metro, was a very social affair, well attended, and I think everyone appreciated the effort and the chance to meet other bike commuters. Hopefully, the other two big cycling events this month, the L'etape du California and the Tour of California, have not run the coffers dry, and there will yet be a commuter event. For update see here.

Finally, finally, and speaking of L'etape du California, it will be held this approaching weekend. You can sign up any time leading up to the event, over 1300 people have done so already, and the special event jersey is sharp looking.